


the roaring 20's

by cassthecryptid



Category: Smosh
Genre: 1920's (kind of) au, Gen, Smosh Writing Week 2019, Smosh Writing Week 2019 - Day One, Soulmate dreams au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 18:48:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassthecryptid/pseuds/cassthecryptid
Summary: a tale of dreams, soulmates, and a bit of fate





	the roaring 20's

It was long ago said, and long ago tested, that every third week following your fourth birthday, you would dream of your soulmate. 

No one quite understood how it worked, and to this day, it was still a mystery that puzzled scientists and the common person alike. It was an endless sort of study. Any time there was new information, something else would come around and counteract it. But one thing was for certain. 

One Damien Haas didn’t care for the science, or the glamour, or the romance of it all. 

Because he never dreamt of a soulmate. 

When he was young, he felt the creeping jealousy crawl through him as his friends doodled their soulmate's images in their notebooks and into the backs of their planners. It was as if no one could talk about anything but their soulmates. He cursed them all behind their backs,  _ damn lovesick fools _ . 

As he grew older, and people began to meet those they saw, the deep and dark and beautiful images of those dreams, Damien indulged in other pleasures. It was the damned 20’s after all! And a single night in a swing bar or a dance hall was better than all the dreams in the world.

Glasses of champagne sloshed against the swooping gaze of neon lights, and shimmering pearls that adorned the necks of women moved and swayed like a badly maneuvered trolley. Damien brushed against those who came to the halls for, drinking and pouring his hungers into the hands of those who had abandoned thoughts of their soulmates for the intimatly daring, albeit, distinctly wrong feeling of dancing with a stranger who could never be their own. 

Though they pressed their fingers against his chest, his back, his neck, their breath soft against all those places and more, they could never fully push themselves to him. They would pull away as they remembered the features of their soulmate, the glances, the shimmering eyes, the golden threads of fate pulling them together, and they would hold him a second, and then they would disappear into the crowd, leaving him alone again. As they always did.

Damien knocked with the back of his knuckles in a specific pattern on the small black door behind Gallagher's. The peep hole in the door slotted open, and a pair of sharp brown eyes matched his.

“Silly Sally took a drink of liq’a, fell down the stairs-”

Damien completed the familiar rhyme. “She laughed as she fell to the floor, and garnered many stares.” 

The door opened with a loan groan, and a pair of hands flung over his shoulders. “Damien!” A small body nestled against his own in a hug for just a moment. They pulled away, and the grinning expression of Olivia Sui, brought him back to nights spent talking, or rather, slurring and unsteady with bouts of laughter breaking every other sentance, drunk on whatever was best behind the counter.  She wore the familiar emerald green dress that clung to her hips, the black embroidery that flowed throughout the ensemble ending in tassels that extending the dress past her thighs, down to just above her knees. A string of pearls hung down against her chest, and her hair was pulled up and back, fastened into place with a peacock feather. 

“You really came! And don’t you look dashing,” she purred. Olivia grabbed his tie, straightening it as she smoothed his vest and fluffed his coat. “It’s been a while.”

“Well I’m rightly glad to be home, Liv,” he gave her a smirking grin. “I could never miss a show at the Cat’s Eye.”

Olivia pressed her lips together, suppressing her smile. “If I wasn’t already head over heels for my Sammy, I’d have snapped you right up.” 

“A man can dream, can’t he?” Damien didn’t mean the words, but it was fun to watch her hand, gloved up to the elbow in green velvet, wave flusterdly.

“You damn flirt,” she swatted at his shoulder. “Keep on dreaming. You'll find your someone.” He felt his expression twitch, but caught himself.

"How've you been?"

"Good, good." Olivia seemed distracted, whether from the lights or something else, he wasn't sure. "It's funny you come tonight-"

Damien grinned, feeling the familiar humour jumping to his lips. "You gotta mob boss on the edge of a glass you've gotta take care of?"

"You're funny." She scrunched her nose in a way that told him that she was humouring him.

He let out a fake gasp. "Am I really that bad? So bad at humor that it makes the great Olivia Sui, give me a pity laugh." 

"No, no," her smile was more genuine this time. "You just hit closer than you think sometimes."

He felt his eyebrows pop. "You gotta Don on your ass?"

"We're a speakeasy, Damiey, of course we do." Olivia rolled her eyes. "But i t’s all jake, my dear,” she patted Damien’s shoulder. “Come visit with me and Sammy, we’ve missed you. Oh!” Her expression brightened. "And I've got some friends you might like to meet." 

“That sounds like a gaggle of monkeys at the barrel of a gun, I could use some panther piss at a time like this.” 

Olivia drew herself up, moving herself gracefully like the dancer she was, as they strode through the club.  “Maybe just start you with some giggle-water, dear.” She looped her arm around his. “Besides, we’re all out of whiskey.” 

“That’s phonus if I’ve ever heard it. You just opened.”

“We did, but a group of dewdroppers came in earlier and got half-seas over before I could tell em’ to go chase themselves.” 

“Damn, and I came here hoping for a quilt.” Damien and Olivia moved through the Cat’s Eye Club. The place was packed for it being so early, and the stage with lit with a hot golden light as dancers and the local band blared on, sweat dripping down their foreheads as the singer struggling to try to get a word in over all the noise. 

They turned a few corners, gliding along the smooth curving edges of the club's walls. Around the corner, they finally faced a large circular booth that overlooked the stage, when  Olivia’s soulmate lay back against a plush seat,and three other people Damien didn’t recognize, sat with him. 

On the far left was a stick of a man, with wild curly brown hair and a pair of glasses that framed his face. His suit was a light grey, and was much too big on him. He watched Damien with intrigue, his eyes were illuminated by the single light above them, and he squinted from the way it glinted off his glasses.

The second was a woman was waves of blonde hair falling around her chin. She wore a bright blue headband with an ivory pin. Her dress matched it, falling down in shiny silver-blue hues. It shimmered and moved like feathers, fluttering and flapping as she moved her hands. She looked like a real bearcat, with fierce expressions and bright mannerisms. Her head turned to him, and he caught a pair of glinting green eyes as they tried to conspicuously pass over his face. There was a feeling that hummed in his fingertips when he looked at her, something about her he couldn't place.

The next was Sam, who was a familiar face. Dark eyes, soft jaw, short brown hair, and a sharp suit that hung over his shoulders. It puffed him up, making him look broader and brighter, the red tie wound loosely around his neck glowed like a thick strip of paint against his chest.

The final figure stilled something in him. He’d seen the man before, somewhere, but he couldn’t place where exactly. The man had massive arms, and sandy brown hair that was swooped up in that new european style. His eyes were what were familiar, Damien decided, in that same way as the woman's before him, as blue and bright as ice glinting in the bottom of a cocktail.

“Look who I found around the bend!” 

“Damien Haas?” Sam’s eyebrows popped up. “It has been  _ ages _ ! Where have you been hiding out?” 

“Oh you know,” Damien waved a hand. “Laying low, trying to book gigs, trying not to get caught at speakeasies, reputation, you know.” 

“You worry too much!” Sam's voice popped in his ears like bad microphone feedback. Sam held out his arms as  Olivia climbed into the booth over the ice-eyed man, snuggling next to him. “Glad you could come out, we miss you around here. I tell everyone that will listen, ‘you know that Damien fellow, yeah the actor, he’s the absolute berries, and you’d be bluenosing Mrs. Grundy not to try to meet him’.”

“Gosh Sammy,” Damien slid into the seat. “That means the moon and stars.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” Sam waved his hand. “One on the house. Noodle juice? Giggle water? A jorum of skee?” 

“I was hankering for some panther piss but Liv here says you’re all out.”

Sammy leaned in. “Yeah some real reubens came in here earlier, got all zozzled on our good whiskey, and then left. The nerve of some people.” He sighed, leaning back. “But it’s all jake now. Keith’s up on stage, and nothing could be better. It’s a sockdolager kinda night, huh?”

Damien tipped his head up to see the man on stage. He had dark skin, glinting with sweat under the heat of the lights above him. But despite it all, he seemed in his element, moving and shaking in a neon green suit, the cut of which Damien had been seeing getting popular in uptown of recent. The room seemed to sway with him, tapping toes, bobbing heads, and liquor falling as free and fast as a passing storm. 

It was a good night, and Damien could feel it humming through his skin. 

The song changed, and Olivia let out a little squeal. “Oh, Sammy, it’s our song, we have’ta dance!”

“Liv, you know I’m no Oliver Twist-”

She was already dragging him towards the dancefloor before he could protest again. 

“Aren’t they just the darb?” The blonde woman crooned, tipping her head as she smiled. “I wish I’d have met my soulmate this young. Liv is a lucky woman.” She had clearly already had a bit to drink, her cheeks bright red in the darkened bar. “I can only dream.” The woman paused for a second before giggling at her own joke. She rolled her eyes, “literally, if we take it like that.” She perked up less than a second later, “oh wait, Noah.” The woman patted the shoulder of the man next to her. “Haven’t you and-”

He patted her hand quickly, trying to keep her quiet. “Yep,” his voice was sharp. His eyes flashed from her to the man onstage, and the to Damien, before flickering back to her. “But with present company…”

“Oh dear, oh dear.” The woman put a hand to her lips. “I am so sorry, seems this drink has gotten the better of me.” She changed the subject, looking to Damien. “So, you, Damien, right?” He barely had time to nod before she continued. “You meet your soulmate yet?” 

“Uh, no?”

“Another!” The woman lifted her arms up. “Shayne, we’re not so alone anymore, are we?”

The man next to him finally spoke. “I guess not.” 

She dropped her head to the table, grumbling into it something about it being ‘nice and cool’. 

Shayne shifted in his chair slightly, his eyes connecting with Damien’s. “So you’re a single still too?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Damien felt a strange lump in his throat. 

“When are you supposed to meet them?” 

It was a standard question usually asked of singles. In dreams, you could often figure out when you two would meet by small clues in the background. When his parents had met, his mother had seen rain and the name of the cafe, and his father had seen a street name and the Statue of Liberty. And just like that, they’d met in the rain, by a cafe in New York. 

Sometimes people got more than that, sometimes they got less. It depended person to person, in yet another strange process the same scientist from before, had yet to figure out. 

Damien had gotten used to lying, especially with flourish like this. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “That’s partially why I’m here.”

Shayne’s eyebrows popped. “It is? Are they supposed to be here?” 

“Still don’t know,” he screwed up his face. "Maybe?" Damien shook his head, looking down. "Liv invited me out tonight, said it was something special." 

Shayne nodded, but Damien couldn’t help but get the feeling like he still didn’t quite understand what Damien meant. “What about you?”

“Oh you know,” the man waved a hand. “I’ll see, um, her, in a park somewhere. She’ll look nice, wear a dress or something, you know.” He seemed utterly desperate to change the subject. “Soulmates, right, complicated.”

“Yeah,” Damien narrowed his eyes. “Complicated.” 

“Shayne’s always like that.” Noah tipped his head up, his gaze flickering across the room. “He’s never really the guy to boast about his soulmate.”

“Ha!” The woman lifted her head. “Because all of us are the weirdos.” She put her hands up in air quotes. “The exceptions to the rule or something like that.” 

“Courtney-” Noah let out a sharp breath. His eyes flicked up to Damien. “Not in front of him.”

“Did I stretch the dog again?” The woman laughed. “Sorry, darling, you’re learning a lot about us that you probably didn’t want to know, huh?” 

“You’re, exceptions to the rule?” Damien questioned it softly, feeling the heat of Noah’s glare across from him, and the cold shame from Shayne next to him. “If it is what I think it is, trust me, I know my onions plenty well.” 

“Do you?” Noah’s voice was painfully sharp. It was clear that he was protective of someone, or something, and Damien tread lightly. 

“Do you not dream?” Courtney’s words were blunt, and they slammed into him harder than the 7 o’clock train. She watched him with those soft green eyes that held a weight he’d never known.

“I-” He felt his face begin to crack and crumble. 

“I see why Olivia likes you.” 

"Why Olivia likes me, what do you mean?"

Courtney sat up, grinning. “I should ring a bell,” she beamed. “We’ve got another one!” 

“Another one-” 

The woman rolled her eyes. "Of course that's why we're all here. She invited the anomalies out for a meet and greet."

“I thought she was-”

Courtney shook her head. “She’s all jake with the soulmate stuff. She and Sam found each other just like the stories say. But Olivia likes oddities.” She gestured to the Club around them. “Clearly.” 

“She found us, well, she found Courtney.” Shayne continued. “And then Noah, and-”

“Keith, right?” Damien made the connection. “The man on stage. You two don’t dream, but you still-”

Noah let out a sigh, somewhat relieved but still on edge. “We fell in love, no strings, no dreams, no nothing.” 

Damien felt his world broaden in that instant. His gaze shifted to Olivia, who caught his eye over Sam’s shoulder. She gave him a bright grin.  _ How had she known? _

Olivia Sui was just magic like that, he supposed. She waved him over as the song changed, something Courtney seemed to catch.

“Let’s dance!” Her words were less slurred now, but as she stood, she nearly knocked over Noah. “C’mon!” She spun, the colors of silver and blue of her dress flirted with the yellow-gold glow of the room. “Are you coming or not?” Courtney held her hand out for Damien, and tentatively, he reached for it. 

At the same moment her fingers connected with his, he felt Shayne’s fingertips press into his shoulder. An electric shock fluttered through Courtney’s fingertips, and ran with bright fluorescence through Damien’s hand, running up his arm and down his spine, before shocking into Shayne. The three of them stopped, and for a second, Damien could only see stars in the colors of the dancers around them.

Greens and pinks and blues kissed up close to his face as he stumbled forward. Courtney held him steady, as Shayne moved forward with him, the three of them trying to steady to their feet, their hands still held close to one another.

“What is this-?” Courtney sounded mistified, and she tightened her grip on Damien fingers. He loosened his hand to grip hers properly. He’d never felt anything like this either, and he too, didn’t want it to end anytime soon. 

Shayne’s fingers were still on his shoulder, and they hummed with warmth. Damien felt Shayne trail his hand down his arm and around his wrist to press a thumb softly into his palm. 

“Is this?”

“Part of our anomaly,” Shayne was smiling. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. 

Damien turned towards Olivia, and watched as she grinned at him in that way that truly gave the Cat’s Eye Club its name. Her expression was coy and knowing, with a hint of scheming to it.

“She knew,” he murmured. “Olivia knew.”

“Of course she did,” Courtney rolled her eyes. She moved to take Shayne’s hand as well, and Damien felt another spark course down his spine. “She’s magic, isn’t she?”

“By why didn’t we dream? Why now? Why the three of us?” Damien’s questions were as endless as Courtney’s smile, and as deep and boundless as Shayne’s eyes.

She tipped her head to the side. “Does it matter? You’re here, we’re all here.” 

Shayne let out a laugh. “Leave that thinking to the scientists and their ilk.” 

Courtney looked like she might cry. “Why do I feel so...happy...so warm?”

"It's magic," he turned to look at Olivia one last time. "It's pure magic." 

And that night, when Damien’s bed was warm, his lips left breathless, not from shame held by the flings he encountered, but from the sheer overwhelming love of the strangers that were now not so strange; he dreamed.


End file.
